Shear Strengthening of Reinforced Concrete T-Beams by Using Fiber-Reinforced Polymer Composites: A Data Analysis

Many studies have compiled experimental results of fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) shear strengthened reinforced concrete (RC) beams into databases for the investigation of the effect of different parameters on the efficacy of FRP strengthening schemes. However, these studies are mainly comprised of the results of FRP shear strengthened rectangular RC beams. The RC T-beams are stronger in shear than the rectangular RC beams, represent the most realistic situation, and have more significance in the construction industry. However, no study comprising of a large number of results of FRP-strengthened RC T-beams has been found. Therefore, the present study represents the results of more than 250 tests performed on the shear deficient RC T-beams strengthened with FRP and also the essential material characteristics. It also compares the accuracy of seven widely used design guidelines for the prediction of shear contribution of FRP based on the experimental shear contribution of FRP. This study concludes that the efficacy of the FRP strengthening scheme varies with the adopted strengthening schemes, whereas the predictions of different design guidelines observed to be not promising. However, predictions by fib and TR55 guidelines have good correlation and standard deviation values, respectively, with the experimental results than the other guidelines.